I thought that you had mentioned that you had the same signature campaign for the whole time.  Certainly, I was NOT questioning whether there is a bias against giving merits to signature campaigns.  I was only questioning your assertion of being on the same signature campaign for the whole duration of the merit system.

Exactly.  I agree, and I think that whiners and signature haters use the presence of a signature campaign as a nonsensical (and not supported by evidence) talking point.  I had various sponsored signatures for more than two years from late 2015 to early 2018, and I discontinued with signature campaigns largely because I was becoming irritated by their shifting around the payment amounts, and I considered that it was not really worth it for me to be hassled in keeping track about whether I was getting paid the proper amount... so without telling any signature campaign specifically, I just kind of became fed up with them from a personal management level.  Probably I did earn close to 3 bitcoins from my participation in signature campaigns in a bit over 2 years, so it was not a bad thing in terms of scraping together a few more bitcoins.